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Units, artifacts, spells and Pet Dragon Discussion, questions and solutions about units, artifacts, spells and Pet Dragon. |
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#1
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Yeah, i agree phoenix is worthless. Even with 65 int mage, ancient phoenix barely survive verona fight againts lv 25 ish hero.
As for int, i agree that int is useless for paladin, yup, leadership is the best way. Leadership + summoning 3 + phantom paladin/rune mage/inquisitor is much better alternative for resurecting than a lv 3 resurection with the maximum possible int a paladin can accumulate. Though there is a rare case in which resurection is better. Summoning 3 basically increase 50% the number of your unit summoned by phantom, a no brainer choice if you go for phantoming. I don't do the exact math, buf from seeing the fact itself, lv 3 phantom that has 45% effect will become 67%, 22% more, that's insanely a lot more (exactly 50% more unit, this means 50% more to the power of its resurection ). @ck i think he did mention only black knights, so it's solo black knight. As for black knight, i agree that you don't really need darkness set, and as a paladin you can't wear it due to lack of artifact slot. As for initiative and speed, many other things can help (spells and items). Same with critical. Paladin class has prayer which increase critical by 10%, indeed it's half of the +2 morale from darkness set, but still better than nothing. Last edited by atlatea; 11-18-2010 at 10:34 AM. |
#2
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![]() Best part is, he can be cast anytime to interrupt the sequence of turns, since it has a fairly fast initiative, it will almost always go after whichever unit you are using. But yes, even with high int, he basically will die in 2 rounds, revive, to maybe survive, but usually die again. Just a pretty nice way to do 6K (12K if he is positioned for a good retaliation) dmg + tank for only 35 mana! ![]() Basically, intellect is a really worthless stat UNLESS you can REALLY REALLY jack it up. Even then, it is only marginally useful. Yes, I'm dissing on the Mage class. ![]() Compare all these goodies to the poor stepchild Dragon of Chaos.... makes you wonder what the heck those developers were thinking. They clearly don't play on Impossible mode often. ![]() Of course, this all only applies in Impossible Mode. Morale complements the Paladin Prayer skill (which is probably one of the only skills I will always max haha), so it is a little harder to compare directly. e.g. the Prayer skill works in conjunction with Morale. In short, Prayer skill with Morale +2 makes Prayer skill have a +3% bonus on top of the 10% base skill. Nevermind the fact that every unit has a raw unit base critical, so that makes morale even nicer. If you have a lot of high BASE critical, the morale bonus trumps the paladin prayer bonus, however, the prayer paladin bonus applies to the BASE critical, so that isn't a fair statement for me to say! Critical 15% raw unit base 10% prayer 20% dagger of judgment 45% total base critical +2 morale (30% bonus to criticals) should give +30% so 45*0.3 = 13.5% bonus to critical due to morale. The Black Knights is one of the only units (if not only) that raises his raw unit base critical as he attacks (Rising Anger skill). So if his rising anger forces his critical to go up 3%... it is really going up 3%*1.3 = 3.9% or 4% IF he has +2 morale bonus. In short, if you have a very high base critical with powerful items like Axe of Lightning, Dagger of Judgment, Prayer Skill, Berserker Axe (30% for those Goblins woohoo!), raising morale increases your critical rate by QUITE a bit. Sometimes, up to +30% more, achieving 100% critical! The only drawback is morale can be reduced by negative status effects. As an aside, this is what makes Orc units so nifty. The unit achieves max morale after a kill. So, if your Orc unit has a fairly high base critical to begin with, it is fairly easy to achieve 100% criticals. Makes you want to love those Catapults (which gain +30% base critical when adrenaline rises). ![]() |
#3
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I never use phoenix that much as mage, usually i don't waste my turn to summon it, even in this new system.
Yeah i agree morale bonus is better, still that 10% bonus from prayer seems to make significant difference if you're using BK, considering its special abilities. |
#4
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Umm, you seem to be forgetting that Leadership is gained due to levelling, items (mostly Regalia), banners and 1 skill... while Intellect can be gained with many skills, items, etc. So it's not like I can "go for leadership". It's much harder to increase then Intellect.
I am not playing Impossible, only Hard. It's challenging enough for a no-loss game. Resurrection skill plus Magic Light increases the effect of the spell Resurrection, so if you are not using Paladins - I am now, because I am going with a Human army, but won't do in my next walkthrough - it is the way to go. Btw, funny question... I have never heard/seen of anyone using the Paladin's prayer as an attack skill. It is supposed to damage Demons and Undead. I suppose, since the Paladin's Resurrection boosts Prayer, this could be an usefull weapon, just teleport your Paladin into the fray and "pray"... ![]() |
#5
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You can always INCREASE effective leadership with Paladin units because the Inquisitor's sword ALWAYS spawns. You can also increase effective leadership via Phantom by increasing the Summoner Skill, which again, does NOT really benefit from Int proportionally. Phantom raises up the % by Int/3. That's horribly inefficient. Better off raising Summoning to level 3 than waste ANY points on raising/buffing Intellect for the sake of Phantom. Intellect is one of the worst stats in the entire game because it takes so much of it to be useful in IMPOSSIBLE games. Not to mention, damaging spells tend to be not nearly so good in Impossible games since the enemy is overwhelmingly strong compared to you. That said, I usually ended up going support mode even with a Mage because there simply wasn't any point. An extra 500-1000 damage is worthless. Clearly if atlatea and I play and beat Impossible games EASILY without any losses, don't you think our advice is easily applicable to lower difficulty levels? However, you don't plan to use Paladins... and probably dont' plan to use inquisitors or rune mages either. I highly advise rune mages if you plan to do the demon build. Funny how the archdemons ranked nearly one of the best tank units on loreangelicus' spreadsheet. ![]() The problem with Intellect, especially for Resurrection, is that it does not gain a bonus for every 7 intellect like most of the damage spells. So, Resurrecting based on Intellect is purely linear, and at a pathetically slow rate too. Incidentally leadership can turn the tables big time depending on which part of the game you are, and they are key against all bosses. Magic Light the Magic Tree Skill is only "really" good at level 1, since each consecutive increase only provides an additional 5% for 4 mind and 5 magic runes as opposed to a nice 15% boost at level 1. Resurrection Paladin Mind Tree Skill raises the ability by 10% at first, but keeps giving 10% per upgrade, but costs 12, 14, 16 mind runes per level. I would go with Rune Mages, and don't bother with Magic Light past level 1 unless you really got spare goods. You probably want rune mages at a minimum as they tend to have similar revival capabiliites as the Paladin but no Area of Effect. However, Rune mages lets your revive level 5s, and lets you revive from a range, as opposed to walking the units to the paladin. Of course, this is with 20 spare mind runes for the rune mage. If you just do the math, you'd see the difference though. Anyways, back to your leadership vs intellect. Metamorphic Axel can do 2000 leadership or +4 intellect. Which one is better for reviving? 2000 leadership means 9 more paladins. 9 paladins means 9*24 = 218 HP healed. Level 3 Resurrection (mind you, you already wasted magic crystals to get this spell), 600 HP base, so you need 36% boost to heal 218 HP. 36% boost is 7-8 Intellect, OR Level 3 in Mind Tree Resurrection + 2 intellect. Or Level 3 in Magic Light + 11 intellect points. Throw in Inquistor sword and Metamorphic axel, and the gap is even bigger, requiring 45% boost in magic (9 intellect) to compare. So, I can get one Metamorphic Axel OR I can Waste 46 mind runes, 2 slots for +7/+8 intellect and 28 magic crystals. Or 12 mind runes, 15 magic runes, 3 slots for +11 intellect and 28 magic crystals. Or you can replace the loss of slots for consuming more magic runes for the Magic Tree. Considering all I had to do was get one Metamorphic Axel... Or heck, just throw in the Elven Crown, or Marshal's Baton... the idea is that leadership is FAR FAR FAR FAR more efficient in this regard. If you are using units to revive, leadership is usually more important. -X% to leadership items are very very very good. Of course, if you are playing on hard as opposed to impossible, who knows. Maybe all of this is moot since it should be easy enough to use any other strategy to win. I've never played Hard mode. ![]() |
#6
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Regarding magic light skill, i agree that going beyond lv 1 is a waste of runes.
Play KB TL if you want better resurrection spell, but they have very limited use in AP and CW. |
#7
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Again, you play Impossible games - I only play Hard. It's enough of a challenge, and since I only get to play maybe 3-4 hours a week it'd take me a lot of time to finish an Impossible game. I'm a bit surprised at what you say about Resurrection and how it doesn't increase every 7th Intellect point. Granted, I played on Normal with my Warrior, but even she with her not too high Intellect had enough spell power to resurrect everything I have lost even in hard battles. Baal was tough to do no-loss - killing him is not that hard, ensuring some unit is left behind to keep resurrecting your units without Gilbert killing it is harder - but in the end I killed him by going only with one stack of Gorguls and spamming Phantom and Time Back. Gorguls can attack Bhaal without fear of retaliation, often more then once per round, "through" the demons he summons. ![]() My question regarding your message is - since my current army build does contain lots of Human units - what is this Inquisitor Sword and where can you always find it? I checked the save game in Excel and did not see it... Last edited by BB Shockwave; 11-22-2010 at 05:11 PM. |
#8
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From thomas torve, defeat him and you get the sword. In CW, he always appears in elon, however in AP, it is random.
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#9
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![]() I work. I'm a pretty analytical guy and oddly enough, I find that doing this analysis SAVES me time in the long run. Perhaps it is my way of getting back at the game for when I played Impossible and ended up running out of gold, or I would be nearly at the end of the game on Impossible, and had no way to beat the bosses, losses or not. That's right. I try whatever I can to steam roll this game to get back at it! Take that, King's Bounty! ... ![]() Nothing makes me more sad then wasting hours upon hours in a battle where it is highly inefficient. e.g. 60 rounds to beat driller with single stack trolls. what the?!? Where one bad move can lead to a restart of a 60 round battle. That's not my idea of fun. ![]() I find that is more time consuming and a waste of my time. That is what drove me more and more into learning the game mechanics and seeing the optimal paths of victory. That said, the analysis isn't really as time consuming as one might think, especially with the excellent user derived manual and spreadsheet development skills. Once you get the game mechanics down, it is pretty easy to see where the optimal points are. Regarding using similar units over and over again, well, that's the basis of my other thread. "Units you love/hate". ![]() Or, the ever so insane Black Knights. Besides Paladins, I do end up using quite a few different units. Although, I think I am near the end of my run and thank goodness. I've spent too much time on this game. ![]() Quote:
But later on, if you have a good killer army in mind, you should be able to do it fairly easily. In short, an Impossible game shouldn't take longer than a Hard game if you got the right unit mixture. But, it might be more difficult for you to come up with proper combinations in an Impossible game than a Hard game since your margin of error is far far smaller. Plus, some battles might be particularly grueling if you can't get the items or units you need for a smoother victory. Admittedly, a lower difficulty level would allow for a larger range of units to be played successfully. There is a certain charm to beating up some super Demon with a pack of Peasants. Ok, I haven't done that... but would be funny. ![]() Quote:
Ah yes, the "attack through the weak unit" no retaliation tactic is great. Of course this tactic is the meat and drink of dragons... gosh I love those units. Thankfully the rune mage lets me use Dragons in more situations than before. That's why I felt they were such a pivotal unit to changing the usable army compositions in Crossworlds. Quote:
Of note, the only other item that can reduce leadership further is the Knight's Set. But it seems so rare, not all the items are that great,... and the end goal seems a little mediocre. I think it was somethign like 22K damage, but with slow melee, one retaliation... If used with a warrior you could get more retaliations, but, the paladin class will result in more damage, even with the 6750 leadership gap. But the Knight's Set does decrease requirements for Horsemen and Knights. ![]() |
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